Postgraduate Programs in Disaster Management (PPDM) was launched in 2005 as the first academic and research program on Disaster Management within the structure of a university in Bangladesh. It is the first such program in the entire South Asian region. It allows contributing to the nationally and internationally significant practice-oriented field of disaster management. It offers master, diploma, and certificate degrees.

It offers degrees in five specialized streams:

1. Disaster Risk Reduction
2. Social Safety and Community-based Adaptation
3. Human Security and Humanitarian Crisis Management
4. Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainable Development
5. Public Policy and Organizational Strategies

The streams allow to deal with diversified current as well as changing/evolving disaster-related issues. The idea matches with the current concepts of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and mainstreaming Disaster Mitigation. All streams allow meeting the demand shift at the international and national level, focusing on specialized knowledge on social safety, adaptation, climate change impacts, humanitarian assistance, sustainable development, policy analysis, and organizational strategies.
Students will get opportunities to choose a stream based on their interests, experiences, and future opportunities for employing the knowledge. The Stream-specific master program makes the degree unique among similar degrees provided by other institutes. It allows conducting theory-based as well as practice-oriented programs on relevant scientific fields, technologies, and social issues, emphasizing the need of acquiring field based knowledge through conducting field studies and surveys.